It's check up or health check time. Students line up to get their bodies measured. (A customary thing in Japan at all schools). Kanako has been assigned as a helper, but she faints and misses her opportunity to get a glimpse of beautiful bodies. But she just happens to see Maria, and he has boobs! It turns out that Maria has a twin sister Shizu that is attending the boy side of the school dressed like a boy. The arrangement was made to fulfill their great grandmother's will where the person that can stay without being found out for three years gets the seat of the President of both the boys' and the girls' schools.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Overall, Maria Holic is a fair series but doesn't quite reach the levels of hilarity or drama as one might hope,
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This review is from: Maria Holic Volume 2 (Paperback)
Kanako Miyame is still adjusting to life at the Ami No Kisaki school for girls. She came to the school in hopes of finding true love as her parents did. However, Kanako is not looking for love from a male teacher. She seeks the hearts of her fellow students. She can't help it if touching men gives her hives, and cute girls make her swoon.
Settling in wasn't easy either. By pure misfortune, Kanako had stumbled upon the popular Mariya while dressing to discover she was actually a boy in disguise. Mariya, being the powerful granddaughter of the former headmistress, forces Kanako to be her room mate in order to prevent her from spilling the beans about her gender-bending. Between the constant verbal abuse from Mariya and bullying from other girls in class, Kanako's first few weeks at the new school really suck. In volume two of Maria Holic, Kanako has finally made some friends of her own. Mariya still torments her, but she manages to find a little peace among her newfound comrades. Then the annual physicals come up, and she starts to wonder how Mariya plans to hide her secret identity from the staff. When the day for the physicals finally comes, Kanako discovers the other side of Mariya's true identity. Having accepting the fact that she's going to be stuck under Mariya's cruel thumb, Kanako decides to start digging into the cross-dresser's past to find out why she and her childhood best friend became bitter enemies. As serious as this book sounds so far, Maria Holic is actually a slice-of-life comedy rather than a sad yuri (girls' love) drama. If it wasn't for the fact that Kanako prefers women to men, this book would not have its Older Teen rating. This manga is actually very safe and not graphic in the slightest. Readers who enjoy series such as Azumanga Daioh, Kodocha, or even School Rumble may enjoy this too, even though it's not quite as funny. This manga offers a large cast of characters ranging from forgettable to amusing, which is a little much to take in this early. Being a school comedy, a large cast is normal, but so far it has been a tad daunting trying to remember the names of all the side characters. The artwork is average with plenty of comical "super deformity." There is nothing graceful about it, but being a comedy series rather than a romance, it's acceptable. Overall, Maria Holic is a fair series with deceptively gothic covers, but doesn't quite reach the levels of hilarity or drama as one might hope. There is plenty of setup to discover the deeper sides of all the characters, but will it pay off? This is series would be appropriate for teens seeking a slightly different school drama without anything too heart-wrenching. It has potential to get there, but we'll have to wait for future volumes to see if it worth investing the time. -- Courtney Kraft
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Don't judge this manga by its cover,
This review is from: Maria Holic Volume 2 (Paperback)
I think one of the problems with "Maria Holic" is that it is hard to determine what genre the book is in. The title and covers make it look like some sort of gothic story, maybe even related to Clamp series xxxHOLiC (It's not. The only slightly gothic character is the sarcastic maid Matsurika who appears here on the cover.), the premise makes it sound like some sort of sexy all-girl nunsploitation comic (It's not. There is no fan service to speak of, actually.). Screwball comedy? Serious drama? Romance?
Maybe it is this refusal to commit to a particular genre that keeps the series from reaching its potential. It is like a dish where the flavors don't blend just right, or a pizza with too many disparate toppings. You might still enjoy it but something just isn't right. There are elements of "Maria Holic" that I absolutely love. The initial premise, of a lesbian who decides to attend an all-girls Catholic high school in order to find her true love, is packed with potential. The discovery that her first potential love-interest is actually a boy masquerading as a girl in the school has even more potential. But the author seems stuck with which direction to take the story in. This second volume in the four-volume series fixes some issues from the first volume. Mariya Shido, the cross-dressing roommate, loses a little bit of that malevolent edge in this issue when it is revealed exactly why he is at the school. Mariya gets a bit of a heart in this volume, although he still behaves in a bizarre manner such as dousing Kanako with gasoline in the morning, then following her around with a lighter threatening to light her on fire if she doesn't do what he says. That goes a bit above-and-beyond the usual wacky hijinks one sees in a comedy manga and ventures into true cruelty. Kanako, on the other hands, gets a chance to shine as a true comedy foil when it is announced that she will help out with the girl's health checks this year. A chance to see every student in their bra and underpants gets Kanako so excited she is a veritable geyser of nosebleeds. These scenes had me cracking up. Some of the other scenarios worked for me as well, such as when Kanako is asked to help out with the Virgin Mary parade, and while her mind is filled with visions of cosplaying angels the school's student council leader, who is also Mariya's cousin, gets serious talking about the lack of belief in Christianity even though it is a Catholic school, and what goes on in all the girl's heads during mandatory prayer. This was a good bit of dramatic relief after all the wackiness that went on before. I like "Maria Holic" in spite of its faults. In some ways, it reminds me of School Rumble, which is one of my all-time favorite mangas. Author Minari Endou doesn't quite have the same flair for surrealistic comedy, but there are moments in "Maria Holic" that approach the same heights.
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